Focusing on Writing

I have to echo what Andy said in his post. Because of the Missouri Writing Project, my focus is on writing. I am helping my students become better writers by having them write more.

My students are blogging, which includes posting at least twice each week on their own blogs for "C" level work and commenting at least three times each week on entries their peers write. For "A" or "B" level work, they need to post consistently, or occasionally more than required, respectively.

My students also begin most class sessions by writing in response to a prompt of some sort. At times I give them a writing prompt and at other times, their peers assign a writing prompt as part of their leadership presentations.

Further, in addition to responding in writing to their peers’ papers, each student will write four "formal" papers during the semester. I am really encouraged by how well they are doing and I look forward to sharing more of my experiences here on the MWPN blog and on my own blog in the months to come.

Renewal

We ate, we wrote, we talked. And it was wonderful. Marcia and Andy started this blog a month or so ago, and I hope after last night's renewal that some of the MWP TC's view this blog. I hope we can keep each other updated on our teaching here. I plan on having Katie post here about her California experiences. I wrote this in a freewrite last night. I think our teaching stories and writing stories connect us. We can post our writing here that we want to share and get feedback on. We can just keep in touch here.

Randal should be posting some of the poems (or is it prose?) that he gets next week from students. We hope Jennifer gives us updates on her portfolio and changes she is making in her classroom. I'm now renaming Heather--the Emeril of the MWP--because she is "kickin' it up a notch!" Let's see some writing from you or your students on here, Heather!

It was great to see everyone last night!

Other Writing Projects

I thought you might be interested in things other Writing Projects are doing. Check out Bud the Teacher's post today about his meeting with the people at the Colorado State University Writing Project.

Also, at the beginning of the month, Bud also linked to the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project.

Enjoy!

Computer and Writing Practice

I teach both first-year writing and professional writing and they are both held in a computer classroom. In each of my classes on Tuesday, I used a variation of the activity below, although the activity as it is described below most closely matches what we did in the professional writing course. Before we started, I explained that we would share the writing that they would do in this portion of class.

First, I asked students to freewrite for 5 minutes about the topics of their first papers.

After they had written for five minutes, I then suggested some narrowing or focusing questions and asked them to write for another five minutes. We're using Writing in a Visual Age as our text, and I used the questions on page 71 as a guide:

• In your opinion, what makes this topic special, remarkable, or distinctive?
• What are the impressions it has left on you?
• Why did it leave those impressions?

Then, I asked students to share with the class what they were writing and thinking about their topics. We spent a few minutes in class discussion and I let everyone talk who wanted to talk to share their ideas.

Then, I asked people to switch computers and provide feedback to other students on their topics. I asked them to use the questions above as a guide.

After 5 more minutes, I asked them to switch again and provide feedback to another classmate. Again, I used page 71 of our text as a guide, as follows:

• How might the writer make it more interesting for the reader?
• What do you know about the topic that the writer might consider?

Then, they switched another time as I provided a couple more questions they could consider to guide their feedback. Again, I used page 71 of our text as a guide:

• Where might the person go for source material beyond personal experience?
• Where might the author go for images? What sorts of images add meaning? Details?

I view this activity as a form of small-group, written-discussion work. I like this activity because it asks students to think, read, write, and move. From the feedback I received in class, I think students enjoyed this activity. Other instructors could modify the questions to suit their needs and vary the time students spend writing at each interval depending upon the time allotted.